Fraudulent and Foolish: ATF Agent on the Run from U.S. Government, Not Cartels

Reckoning day is quickly approaching for the debacle known as Fast and Furious – not soon enough for the family of CBP Agent Brian Terry and many other victims of the doomed federal gun sting operation – but it will come.

People closely related to the investigation have said that Fast and Furious was all part of an agenda that this administration had from the day Obama took office. The President made no secret of his desire to reinstate the assault weapons ban and other firearm restrictions, and he was going to do that by any means necessary. As it turns out, the drug war in Mexico was just the vehicle he needed.

Like a chess game, the pieces started moving into place when President Obama came out with the statement that “90% of the weapons the cartels use are coming from the United States,” referring to a June 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress on U.S. efforts to combat arms trafficking to Mexico.

I remember where I was when I first heard this; I had been in Juarez all day and was about to drive over the Bridge of the Americas back into El Paso, when I listened to a press conference on my radio in which Secretary of State Clinton made this statement. I had just taken a swig of water and, when she said that, I spit all over my dashboard and through my nose in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?!!” I yelled. I’m sure the boys at the port of entry thought I was a crazy man, because I was talking to myself and screaming at the radio all at once.

Any of us who have covered the cartels for the past few years knew that assertion was “90% B.S.” The statement was proven many times over to be false and misleading, but that really didn’t seem to matter to anyone in the administration. However, they did quit talking about it in public.

Then comes Fast and Furious. I have spoken to many of the agents and other insiders directly related to the F&F investigation, including one of the agents overseeing the OP. Every ATF agent I have spoken to has told me virtually the same thing–that to allow those “guns to walk” went against everything they had ever been trained or taught to do. And, in fact, they were not made aware that these guns were going to be allowed to walk until the last moment. The operation was deliberately designed and executed as to not allow anyone, including the agent in charge, to know the end game.

Several ATF agents have since left the agency. Some were quickly transferred and promoted to Washington and other parts of the country–even Mexico. The point is, if the agents on the ground were allowed to talk, which two have so far, it would lead to the steps of the Attorney General Holder’s office and, as it turns out, the White House, as evidenced by the President claiming Executive Privilege over the matter.

I have a source who works for the Juarez cartel and its subsidiaries–Barrio Azteca gang, La Linea, etc. At the that time, he was in charge of weapons procurement, and more recently he worked with ATF agents on the F&F operation as an ATF informant. He carries dual citizenship and spends a great deal of time in El Paso, but he will not anymore.

When I met with him to talk about the F&F Op, he told me that he would not be crossing over back into the U.S. When we did finally meet outside of Juarez, he explained to me that his involvement with the F&F Op had put his life and the lives of his family in danger. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the cartel he’s afraid of. He’s more afraid of what the U.S. government will do to him because of the information he has. Nearly one half of the weapons that were allowed to walk came through the El Paso corridor, and he was instrumental in that process. But now he’s on the run from the same people that paid him to do what he did.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where all of this is going. The Constitution of the Unites States is slowly but surely eroding at the hands of the very people that swore to protect and defend it. I can only hope that enough of us will stand up in November and take the power away from those who are abusing it to enact their own agendas.